Deep Sea Embers

Nina went out to school, and just like many times in the past many years, she once again believed in her uncle's promise to her, believing that his uncle would be waiting for her in the store when she came home from school.

Or maybe she didn't believe it for a long time, but she still persisted in pretending to believe it.

Duncan stood behind the display window on the first floor of the antique shop, watching Nina's trotting figure quickly turn around the alley at the end and disappear from his sight.

Uncle Duncan will be waiting for her at the store when she comes home, he promised.

"Ai, come here."

As soon as the thought flashed in his mind, a stream of green flames suddenly flashed through the air, and the figure of the dove appeared in front of Duncan.

The bird tilted its head and looked at its master with mung bean eyes.

Through the connection established by the fire of the spirit body, Duncan can clearly perceive the position of the pigeon and perceive its status - although it is not yet possible to fully share the five senses, this level of perception can now be achieved A lot of things.

Duncan lowered his head and looked into Ai's small eyes: "You are actually very smart. You can fully understand what I say and can do many things, right?"

The pigeon immediately flapped its wings proudly: "Loyalty cannot be expressed in words, loyalty cannot be expressed in words!"

"Then I have a bold idea, and I want you to try it." Duncan smiled, and then took out the sun badge from his arms that has now become a "cultist approaching alarm".

He carefully wrapped the badge with a piece of cloth to prevent it from being exposed to ordinary people, and then carefully tied it to Ai's back with a strip of cloth.

The pigeon was extremely cooperative from beginning to end, and even helped Duncan tie the strips of cloth with its mouth. It seemed to fully understand what its master wanted to do. Except that it could not express its thoughts accurately, it was as smart as a human being.

"You just fly around the city, and when the badge is hot, search for places that resonate. It's best to be specific to a certain building," Duncan explained to the pigeon seriously, "I will sense your location... By the way, first. For activities near the urban area and Cross Street, don’t go to Shangcheng District. I’m not familiar with that area and can’t determine the address just by looking at it.”

The pigeon flapped its wings and tilted its head: "Want some French fries?"

Duncan said with a straight face: "If you can locate one, I can bury you with French fries."

Without saying a word, the pigeon flapped its wings and rushed towards the door, as if it was afraid that its owner would regret it.

Duncan watched the pigeon flying farther and farther in the sky with a smile on his face. His perception clearly tracked the pigeon's current position and the general state of the environment around it. Then he returned to the room and took a map of the city-state of Purland. On the counter, while looking at the map, he recalled the details of the lower town in his mind, while tracking Ai in his perception, constantly confirming the bird's position.

This was actually easier than he expected - the connection established by the spiritual fire was stronger than at first, and Ai's flight route was almost a clear and bright guide line in his mind, with the help of maps and memories. , it is not difficult at all to locate the bird.

This is a good approach.

Duncan exhaled softly and changed into a comfortable position to lean behind the counter - he promised Nina that he would not go out to "ask for danger", so of course he would do it.

But he can let the pigeons go hunting and write the report letter at home...

To be fair, this is a better plan. Flying pigeons can search much more efficiently than driving around the city in a car. Of course, there are also disadvantages to this, that is, after finding the cultist's den, there is no way to blend in. After searching for information, there is only a little reporting value left.

But Duncan didn't care much about this regret. Anyway, based on the experience of the last rally, those cultists who can be easily found are actually a group of minions who are snooping for information at the grassroots level. Their intelligence value is limited. , and if Ai really senses any "big fish"... he also has a follow-up method to "catch" the big fish alone.

After all, Ai Yi's ability is not just to fly around with a sensor on his back - his main job is to deliver express...

If he really found the big fish, he asked Ai Yi to open the door and teleport the person to the Lost Home. Since his body was on the ship, he could interrogate him more conveniently.

It just so happened that he hadn't tried letting pigeons teleport humans yet, so he couldn't do this kind of experiment on innocent citizens - but that was different with those cult priests who killed people and cut out their hearts when they had nothing to do.

They can be "consumables" when necessary.

Duncan just leaned on the chair and sensed Ai's position while thinking about his plan in his mind. He felt more and more that it was a perfect plan - he planned the draft of the report letter, the draft of the interrogation, the search and the transfer process. Okay, now all that's needed is a two-legged money bag called the "Sun Believer".

The only thing that still needs to be considered in this complete plan is that if his report letter is really successful, how should he explain to Nina when the authorities issue bonuses? He had promised the girl not to go out to "hunt".

Duncan thought for a long time and suddenly remembered something——

In this world that has developed into the industrial age, there is such a thing as a "bank".

This is the inevitable result and necessary condition of the development of economy and productivity.

Although the banking system in this world is far less convenient and less popular than on Earth, the most basic account functions are always available.

The city-states on the boundless sea even used this to build a financial system for interoperability and flow. Although maintaining this system is far more difficult than on earth, they still built this system.

The original owner of his body was not very well off and had never opened an account in a city-state bank - this was a normal thing in Lower City. Normally, only decent people in Upper City would be able to deal with banks." level”, but the bank itself is open to all citizens.

There is a bank in the cross street.

Duncan had a plan in mind, and he decided to go to the Cross Street District in the next two days to establish his first "bank account" in this world. In this way, if his activities in the human world expand in the future, the flow of funds will also change. It's more convenient - and even if you don't think about the future, you can save the step of leaving an address when writing a report letter in the future, and just leave an account.

Of course, whether this is feasible will still have to be tried at that time. After all, the original owner of his body did not have much experience in dealing with the city-state security department (or strictly speaking, he did not have much positive experience), but Duncan believes that this way is reasonable.

In this unsafe world, anonymous reporting should be a normal and cautious choice for many enthusiastic citizens.

As for today...he decided to stay in the antique shop peacefully.

This is not entirely because he has to strictly abide by the "agreement" with Nina, but because this is the first time that he has released a pigeon so far and then used the power of spiritual fire to locate it. His unskilled operation made him Extra concentration is required and a stable environment is required.

Another reason is that it is really time for him to get serious about "business" for a day - he has not yet opened this store.

Duncan stretched and stood up from behind the counter. He slowly came to the door and hung the "Open" sign outside.

He now has some plans and new plans, and it all started because he made an agreement with a seventeen-year-old girl. This is really... an interesting experience.

…

Near the cross street, in the dilapidated abandoned factory, the church guards wearing black and silver-edged long coats have set up a blockade around the area. Inquisitor Fanna, wearing light armor and carrying a blessed sword, Accompanied by two deep-sea priests, they walked through the sloping downward stairs and arrived at the abandoned space on the basement floor of the factory.

Everything here still maintains its original appearance - after the first batch of guards received the report and discovered the gathering place, they sealed the place until now.

In the huge basement, the disgusting smell of blood was particularly strong, mixed with the pungent smell of flame-burning chemicals. The corpses of the cultists lay scattered on the ground, but except for the corpses of these sun heretics, , no traces belonging to the "attackers" were found at the scene - no additional bodies, not even additional fragments of clothing.

Vanna frowned slightly.

This was a one-sided crushing battle. The attackers were far more powerful than these cultists, who were basically ordinary people. Moreover, it seemed that things happened so suddenly that quite a few of these solar heretics were in He was killed without a chance to resist.

Who moved the hand?

A wild supernatural being with a personal vendetta against these cultists? Another powerful cult? Or was it some kind of out-of-control bloody sacrifice, where these self-destructed heretics summoned monsters from the "deep" that they had no control over?

The young inquisitor fell into deep thought.